TOPIC:

Fixed the starter yesterday.
One Coil died on the way home from work today.
Didn't even go 24 hours between breakdowns.
Switched them out to confirm it was dead.
Bought a used one on ebay for $24.
Down again.

Coils get micro-cracks with age and heat. Eventually moisture gets in. An old, used coil will fail sooner rather than later. It seems you can get about a solid 20 years out of them. After that, it's borrowed time.

What's a good replacement for these.
I don't have the $$$ to upgrade the whole ignition system.
I just put plugs and wires on it a month ago.

Maybe the KZ1000-P Police. mfg thru 2005. I believe the ignition system was pretty much the same thru the entire model run.

Buick Grand National. From another forum. Replies by elr658:

my very fast KZ1000R1 has Grand National coils as does my fast cb1100 as does my slow 79 cb750f.

Buick, six cylinder, black, world's fastest living room, adapt the little wires to your bike.
....

You can get very cheap, brand new, rep[lacement coils on ebay that look just like the original equipment coils. That's what I've used for the last few years with no problems. I think they were less than $40 each, and I've seen some that were even cheaper.

The main thing is you need coils that have a nominal primary resistance of 2.2 to 2.4 ohms. You will also want to check the bolt spacing so they mount up properly.

How can you check if the coils are giving the right OHMs?

Greybeard wrote: What's a good replacement for these.
I don't have the $$$ to upgrade the whole ignition system.
I just put plugs and wires on it a month ago.

Hopefully you used the proper ignition parts, because it could help cause problems in the coils (internal arcing?), and the wrong impedance coils can even cause problems with the igniter module that drives them... The cause and effect vicious circle.

The plug wires are non-resistor copper core, and the caps are a 5K resistor cap (5K total resistance between the coil and the plug). The plugs should be non-resistor NGK B8's. I replaced my copper core wires when I restored my bike with equivalent wire, and found several of the resistor caps bad when checking the impedance of the parts.

Mismatching parts can cause other things to fail. Just sayin..

wagonmaster69 wrote: How can you check if the coils are giving the right OHMs?

You measure the resistance of the small-wire connections on the coil with an ohm-meter.

I have a set of andrew coils and measured them like you said and got 3.5 ohms.

wagonmaster69 wrote: I have a set of andrew coils and measured them like you said and got 3.5 ohms.

If I recall correctly, that sounds about right for Andrews coils.
You can use them with a Dyna S, if that is your plan.
You can also use them with points, but they will shorten the life of the points a bit since will run more current than the stock points coils (which are 4 ohms).